Intimate kissing is often viewed as a preliminary or ancillary behaviour in studies exploring sexual interactions. There is a lack of research that focuses on differentiating the types of intimate kisses, including the contexts in which they occur, and desirable and undesirable features. The current study was designed to assess memories of first, best, forbidden and worst kisses. Participants were 691 U.S. adults (mean age 32.27 years; 55% identified as male) who completed an online survey addressing kissing attitudes and experiences using both structured and open-ended survey tools. Four themes emerged through content analysis: physical components, connection to the partner, context, and emotions evoked; and these are discussed for all four types of kissing memories. Findings are discussed in terms of embodiment that intimate kisses capture, their role as a metric of one's attraction to a partner, and the means by which kissing experiences might solidify a sense of oneself as a sexual person.
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically affected how people interact socially. Stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, and closures of non-essential businesses caused disruptions to the development of intimate relationships. Individuals develop expectations about how relationships should progress based on romantic scripts (i.e., relationship guidelines based on social norms), and typically report feeling more satisfied when their relationships follow these scripts. The current study was designed to assess how individuals involved in, or pursuing, intimate relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic adapted to these significant shifts to the progression of intimate relationships. Data were collected from user-generated posts on a popular online forum site. Analysis of spontaneous online communications during the first calendar year of the pandemic (2020) revealed notable impacts on the romantic scripts of individuals in all relationship stages (i.e., single, dating, new relationship, non-cohabiting, cohabiting, long distance, and relationship dissolution). Content analysis yielded themes related to the dominant discourse, as well as similarities across and differences between relationship stages. Overall, people described notable changes to their intimate relationship scripts that they attributed to the pandemic and restrictions. The results contribute to the current understanding of the pandemic’s impact on our closest, intimate relationships and provide insights for use in policy and research around social change.
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